FAA impasse hits Wash. airport project

The partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration, brought on by an impasse in Congress, has halted $1.4 million in work at Pangborn Memorial Airport in East Wenatchee, which serves as gateway toa big chunk of central Washington.

The shutdown has put 4,000 FAA workers on furlough across the country, 217 of them in Washington, and idled perhaps 70,000 construction workers. The stalemate has stopped $2.5 billion in airport construction, halting 150 projects.

The FAA’s re-authorization, normally routine, has become a partisan football in a polarized Washington, D.C.

In a bill sent to the Senate, the Republican-run House of Representatives cut off subsidies to several small rural airports in states represented by Democratic senators, and included an amendment making it more difficult for airline and railway workers to organize.

Phillips told the World he has counted on FAA grant money to pay nearly all of a project that will replace taxiway lights, airport signs and a 1958-vintage electrical vault that powers Pangborn. The new value would include a backup generator for use during power outages.

If the stalemate continues until Congress reconvenes after Labor Day, the FAA will lose $1.2 billion in passengers’ ticket revenue.

“We’re standing in the door, pen in hand, awaiting to award the contract: Until I have the FAA grant, I don’t have the money to pay them,” Phillips told the world. (The project is also getting a $34,763 state grant and $35,000 from the ports of Chelan and Douglas County.)

The airport is located in Washington’s 4th Congressional District, the domain of U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, a senior House Republican and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.